Law, metaphysics, and the new iconoclasm

Authors

R. K. Sherwin, New York Law School

Abstract

We have been told many times since the dawn of the modern era that we are living in a post-metaphysical age. As Gianni Vattimo (2003a) recently put it, we are all on our way to becoming ‘accomplished nihilists.’ When Vattimo uses the word ‘nihilist’, he has in mind Nietzsche’s sense of the term: meaning, roughly, that what we call ‘truth’ is akin to a mobile army of metaphors. In Vattimo’s view, and in the view of many social constructivists (for example Berger and Luckmann 1966), the positivist model of scientific knowledge has increasingly given way to Nietzsche’s model of rhetoric.

Recommended Citation

Sherwin, R. K., Law, metaphysics, and the new iconoclasm, Law Text Culture, 11, 2007.
Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol11/iss1/4